Education Reform

America’s public schools are failing, under the influence of teachers’ unions and special interests. This monopolistic system traps students in an environment that is ill-equipped to provide them with the education they need. It’s time to put parents in charge, by giving them a real choice over how to educate their children. When schools compete and parents are free to choose, the educational benefits are amazing.

Hold Congress Accountable

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As one of our more than 6.7 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators today and ask them to support Senator Mike Crapo’s Local Leadership in Education Act “to prohibit the Federal Government from mandating, incentivizing, or making financial support conditional upon a State, local educational agency, or school’s adoption of specific instructional content, academic standards, or curriculum, or on the administration of assessments or tests, and for other purposes,” and to co-sponsor the bill if they have not already done so.

As one of our more than 6.7 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators today and urge them to support Senator Pat Roberts’ Learning Opportunities Created at the Local Level (LOCAL) Act “to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to prohibit Federal education mandates, and for other purposes,” and to co-sponsor the bill if they have not already done so.

Lately, we’ve seen a seemingly endless assault on education freedom, in the form of misguided proposals from a president bent on cramming backwards education policy down the country’s throat. Fortunately, Republicans have a two-chamber majority now, and a Speaker of the House with a history leading the charge to promote school choice.

Last month, president Obama quietly put forward a new plan to establish a rating system for colleges and universities, designed and overseen by the U.S. Department of education, which would then be used to determine funding levels for these institutions. It’s the continuation of a worrying trend of more federal involvement in education that includes No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core Education Standards, Head Start, and the president’s new scheme to make the first two years of community college free.

Update: White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz has announced that the expected cost of the proposal will be $60 billion over the next decade, a number that seems wildly unrealistic to the present author based on the math below.

Over the last several years, Common Core education standards have become an increasingly important issue for parents and teachers, as they see how children are affected by the policy. Yet, the details of what exactly Common Core is, how it works and how it came to be remain hopelessly complex and difficult for the novice to understand. In the face of slick advertising campaigns by Common Core’s corporate backers and lofty speeches from politicians, the truth can be difficult to ferret out. With the new book, “Common Ground on Common Core,” we finally have a handy, one-volume resource that answers all these questions and more.

There’s a national discussion going on about Common Core educational standards. Polls continue to show that most Americans oppose Common Core. Support is also dropping among teachers. Some educators have actually resigned because of the problems associated with Common Core.

When I was growing up under Mao’s regime in China, we were told to chant everyday in the government run public schools, “Long Live Chairman Mao, Long Live Communist Party.” We were required to write in our dairies every day and turn them in for teachers to review. In the dairies, we were supposed to confess our incorrect thoughts to Mao or do self criticism, or report anything bad we heard or saw from other students, family, and friends. We would memorize Mao’s Quotations and recite them aloud during class. For school fun activities, we would dress up as Chinese minority people in their costumes to sing and dance, thanking Mao and Communist Party from saving them from poverty, or dressed up like soldiers to fight for new China. Mao was like a god to me. I would see him rising from the stove fire or talking to me from the clouds.